Backyard Rototill

Two weekends ago I rototilled the back yard.  I rented the biggest machine Home Depot had and spent at least 12 hours criss-crossing what was left of our grass.  This is part of a larger project to convert the backyard into an urban garden oasis . 
First I used RoundUp on the entire yard.  This took about 3 hours one morning while Lisa was with the kids elsewhere.  It took about a week for the grass to turn yellow.  Then I spread 50lbs of lime over the space I'd be rototilling, which consists of the entire yard starting about 15 feet from the house and ending 10 feet from the alley.  I used a mixture of agricultural lime and dolomite as recommended by Steve Solomon in his book Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades.  I highly recommend this book if this is your thing.  I also spread about 20lbs of complete organic fertilizer which is made from:

• 4 parts seed meal (I used cotton seed meal)
• 1/2 part bone meal
• 1/2 part lime
• 1/2 part kelp meal (I didn't use this on the lawn since it would be so expensive, but I did make a batch with it to use in the future)

I got all of the ingredients from McLendons in Summit.

I was a little scared to see what I'd find when I tore up the ground.  Fortunately it wasn't all bad.  You can see from the photos, that someone had long ago laid down a lot of big chunks of concrete (sometimes referred to as urbanite) possibly as a foot path.  They turned out to be my bigest headache of the day.  Which in the grand scheme of things makes it a pretty good day.  I took an hour to dig them out, and Lisa helped me move them.
The gravel in the center of the yard went deeper than I had hoped.  Part of the problem was that the rototiller sort of fluffs up the soil, making it deeper, so I never did penetrate through the gravel and make it to the soil underneath.  No matter.  For the most part I anticipate that that space will be where we walk.  I won't be trying to grow veggies in it anyway. 

Prior to my final pass I sowed the crimson clover seed and then tilled it under.   I also included some leaf mulch my mom had given me.

It's been a couple of weeks now, and the clover is just starting to break through.  I've been stressing it.  Going out there, looking at the soil, searching for germinating seeds.  The weather has been frosty a couple mornings and we had a windstorm with some bitter cold rain.  Fortunately we've had a warmer spell this week which encourages plant growth. 
Interestingly, the seeds on the south side of the property are not as far along as those on the north.  My guess is that the south edge spends more of its day in the shadows of the neighboring apartment buildings.  Good information to have if you plan on growing plants. 

I'm hoping for a few more days of relative warmth and sunshine to keep the clover growing.  To get established and not be stunted by the low light or cold rain that will come.  But according to weather websites, we're in for 10 days of 49 degrees and rain. 

At any rate, the clover will be tilled under next spring anyway.  It's a green manure.  Its job is to produce organic matter to add to the soil, to break up the subsoil with its roots, and to fix nitrogen.  Next spring I'll plant some of the yard as ground cover, and some as garden. 

The next outside projects are to fix the lawnmower (it needs a tune-up), set up a composting system, and build a back fence.  I can do the lawnmower whenever I want to take the time.  I still need to figure out how I want to approach compost.  And as for the fence, I've just landed on an idea that I like, but need to run it by Lisa.  Basically I'd set some wooden posts, run wires between them, and use the wires to grow grapes, fruit trees, or other climbing or trellaced plants.  The benefits of this idea are that the materials are cheap, it would be within my skill set to build it, it'd look decent, and with plants growing on it it'd be very nice.  The drawback is that it wouldn't provide much privacy; even with plants, a passerby could easily look into the yard.  That's not such a big deal I think, because none of the yard is private.  There are windows and doorways of neighbors in every direction which can look into any corner of the yard.  Privacy can't be the veto since we don't have it anyway.